


and it feels like home

by squeezetheday



Category: Eyewitness (US TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 14:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13320399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squeezetheday/pseuds/squeezetheday
Summary: The first rule of being gay is to have fun and be yourself.--where Lukas researches gay culture but Philip is the one with all the questions





	and it feels like home

Lukas wakes up late on Sunday, and to be honest, he could have just kept on sleeping. But he’d forgotten to close his curtains last night, and the sun shines just as brightly on his face in the fall as it does in the summer.

When he gets downstairs and throws himself on the couch, the Bills are already up by three against the Cincinnati Bengals, but it’s only the start of the second quarter. He holds his poptart between his teeth as he drags a throw blanket over himself. The downstairs of his house is always colder than upstairs.

“What’d I miss?’ he asks his dad around his breakfast, getting comfortable.

His dad, sitting in his armchair by the window, doesn’t say anything, and when Lukas looks over at him, he finds his dad watching him intently, a small frown on his face.

Lukas removes his poptart. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” his dad says after a beat. “I -- didn’t think you’d be coming down to watch.”

“Oh,” says Lukas. “I forgot it was on so early today, or else I would have set my alarm.”

His dad doesn’t point out that it’s hardly early -- it’s nearly one in the afternoon. Lukas thinks he’s expected to apologize for being out late, but instead his dad just looks away, back at the TV, and kind of mumbles, “I just didn’t think this was your _thing_ anymore.”

“My --” Lukas stops.

He’s been watching the Buffalo Bills play ever since he was a little kid. It was his mom’s team, mostly. She’d been fiercely, ridiculously competitive over them. His dad had been more into baseball always, but he used to say he became the Bills’ number one fan as soon as he met Lukas’s mom.

It's a part of Lukas.

His dad had been pretty cool about the whole gay thing, all things considered. It’s terrible to think, but getting stalked, shot, and kidnapped all really helped ease the revelation somewhat, after the initial shock. His dad wasn’t signing up for PFLAG or putting rainbow stickers on his truck, but he hadn’t kicked Lukas out, which he’d been fully anticipating. Especially after the party, where his relationship with Philip became the juiciest piece of gossip since the whole murderer thing.

It took nearly dying for his father to accept him as he is. When he can’t sleep all that well, Lukas finds himself wanting to thank the bullet.

They watch the rest of the game in silence, and it doesn’t seem as fun as it usually does.

Maybe his dad is right. Maybe football isn’t his _thing_ anymore.

After the game, he goes upstairs without a word. He’d done a lot of research lately, but apparently not enough.

He googles his thing.

 

* * *

 

“What the hell?” Philip asks. “Why do you have _Grindr_ on your phone?”

They’re lying out in a field. Earlier it had been sunny enough they could run around in just their t-shirts and flannels, but then the sun went behind some clouds and instantly, it was windy and chilly. So now they’re lying down, pressed close for warmth beneath a blanket of their hoodies, which isn’t nearly as effective as wearing them properly, but it’s still better this way. Their heads are tipped towards each other, Philip holding Lukas’s phone over them to watch his latest videos. They’d just finished and Philip had just instinctively closed out the app and seen his cluttered screen.

“Oh.” He can feel Philip staring at him incredulously. “It’s an app for gay men. I saw it mentioned in an article.” Actually, he’d gotten caught in a Wikipedia spiral. He’d started out on _gay culture_ and wound up hours later on _transcendental idealism_ and he’s not sure he understood anything he’d read on either page. “I downloaded it the other night, but I forgot to open it.”

Philip stares, and keeps staring. But the smile that grows on his face, while incredulous, isn’t mean.

“It’s a hookup app,” Philip says, grinning fully at him now.

“A -- what?”

“A hookup app,” Philip says again. “For gay men to _hookup_. And also date, I guess, but yeah. You got something to tell me?”

The worst, most embarrassing part is how long it takes Philip’s words to make sense to him. When he finally gets it, he sits up and snatches the phone away. “Oh my _God_ , I didn’t _know,_ I never even _opened it_ , I _swear_. I’m just gonna delete it right now.”

“Wait!” Philip sits up too, still laughing. He covers the phone still in Lukas’s grip with his hand. “Let’s look at it.”

Lukas eyes him suspiciously. “Why?”

“I dunno.” Philip digs his chin into Lukas’s shoulder, looking up at him with a light Lukas hasn’t seen in awhile. Lukas’s deathgrip on his phone begins to loosen. “Fun?”

Lukas hadn’t been lying; he had yet to open the app, so together they make a profile. They take a photo of some grass to use as their only picture, and Philip inputs that their name as Walter, because “that sounds like the name of a gay guy, I think.” All they put in their bio is a rocket ship emoji, which Lukas feels is a little bold.

Reception isn’t great out in their field, so it takes a moment for the screen to load, and then their first suitor pops up on his phone.

“Okay,” says Philip. “So that’s a penis.”

Curiously, they look through the guy’s other photos, each one either a naked crotch shot or a faceless, topless mirror selfie.

The profile after that is almost identical, right down to the brand of underwear.

And so is the next.

“I don’t say this enough,” says Philip, “but I’m so lucky I found you.”

Lukas flushes at that, swiping left on the fourth dick pick. Finally, someone’s face. The guy, Henry, is a little older, maybe mid-40s, and he’s posing in a suit next to a nicely dressed woman with a drink in his hand. Another photo shows Henry in a group, the only one without a date in a herd of heterosexual couples. The last was taken in front of a red car, smiling kinda pathetically. He’s wearing khaki cargo shoes and his neck is red with the sun.

“Aw,” says Lukas. “He’s sad.”

Philip cackles. “Should we give him a like? Be nice?”

“Sure,” says Lukas, though he’s not that confident about it. It’s just the internet. The dude’s not going to pop up right behind them, demanding sex. There’s no commitment, it doesn’t mean anything.

Immediately, they’re told Henry has liked them back.

“What the fuck?” Lukas asks. “Our picture is grass.”

Also immediately, they receive a message.

_\- suck my dick_  
_\- spit or swallow?_  
_\- r u into rough sex_  
_\- hello_  
_\- hi_  
_\- you can fuck me 8=====D_  
_\- hello_  
_\- fuck you you ugly bitch_

 

“Did….that just happen?” Philip asks faintly.

“What is wrong with, like, humanity?” Lukas goes back to the other profiles quickly.

There’s a few more dick pics, but more regular guys. A lot of older guys, some looking like middle-aged salesmen, but a few muscular, interesting looking dudes they both silently pause to look at before moving on. A lot of men posing on snowboards or big fish. A lot of body glitter in dimly lit night clubs. They don’t swipe right again, but it’s weirdly addicting. He’d been wrong before, they all look different, after looking long enough. Even the penises.

“Holy _shit._ ” Lukas drops his phone in the grass. He wants to hurl in into outer space.

“What?”

“That’s Mr. Atkins!”

“Who?”

“Mr. _Atkins!_ My eighth grade math teacher! I’m going to _die._ ”

“No freakin’ way.” Philip picks up the phone, laughing again, to get a better look at Jonathan Atkins, or _Johnny, 35_ , smiling widely, holding a large, gaping fish on the back of a fancy speedboat.

“He’s kinda cute,” says Philip, looking through his other photos. “For a math teacher, I mean. I’m going to like him.”

“No!” Lukas lunges for him, snatching the phone and throwing it away, not caring at all where it lands. Being kidnapped by a murderer doesn’t compare to this kind of _trauma_.

“Did you really just --” But Philip is cut off by Lukas falling right on top of him. He looks surprised, and then not. Leaves of grass curl into his hair, tickling his ears. There’s still that same light in his eyes, that teasing smirk edging on his lips like that moment no one ever remembers, when you’ve just drifted off to sleep and a dream begins.

“He is _not_ cute,” Lukas says, leaning lower. “He nearly failed me in Algebra.”

Philip cups his cheek, pulling him down even more. “I just don’t know if we’re going to work out, Lukas,” he says seriously. “And I think one day I’ll need a man who can remember his polynomials.”

Lukas should go find his phone before it gets too dark and his battery dies. Instead he kisses Philip, hard, content in knowing he doesn’t need it right now to find anyone else.

 

* * *

 

After school, they usually go out to film Lukas on his bike, but it’s getting colder now, and it doesn’t take too long for Lukas to stop being able to feel his face or Philip his hands. With no motocross, with no more running for their lives either, and with only so many quiet places to fool around, they have to come up with new, different things to do with their time.

Fortunately, they’re both teenagers. They are both really big fans of just hanging out.

Today, they’re wandering around the Halloween supply store that sprung up overnight in the empty Blockbuster next to the Taco Bell. He leaves Philip alone in the store, as Philip apparently has the uncontrollable urge to try on every novelty hat in the store. Lukas is gradually becoming more self-accepting, but he’s not sure how to deal with wanting to jump the bones of a guy in a Dr. Seuss hat.

He finds what he’d been secretly looking for. To be honest, he’s surprised they carry this stuff, but the Halloween supply store is a chain and they probably don’t give a damn where they ship their shit to, even a little, cow-tipping town like this one.

He’d googled “gay Halloween” last night.

It had been… interesting.

Lukas loves Halloween, and always has. When they live in the city, he’s definitely going to drag Philip to the parade, and all the parties, at least the first year. And maybe -- just… _maybe_ \-- he might have the courage to wear this some of this stuff.

But now?

His phone beeps at him. It’s a message from Philip. _Where are you i found an astronaut helmet and im never taking it off but i cant see anything_

Lukas smiles. _I’m in the back, keep walking until you hit a wall_

Philip has figured out how to lift the visor when he finally finds Lukas. He squints at the small packages covering the wall.

“Who would want to dress as a Sexy Chewbacca?”

Most of the “sexy” costumes on the wall are for women, including sexy Disney princesses, sexy superheroes, sexy cartoons, and sexy food. They all seem to be complicated masses of lace and string, tying together cheap, shiny fabric that somehow costs just as much as the normal costumes, despite having a lot less material. And sandwiched between sexy Batman and sexy Finding Nemo is a single row of costumes for men.

Google Images had provided a ton of photos, usually in clubs or at parades, of gay men celebrating Halloween. Mostly, their costumes consisted of just a pair of shiny booty shorts of varying colors, with a few random accessories differentiating Sexy Mario from Sexy Captain America.

“Should we wear something like this for Halloween?” Lukas asks, picking up a Sexy Jack Sparrow costume, the package no thicker than his wallet. Hat, beard and sword are sold separately.

Philip blinks at him. “To Rose’s Halloween party? I’m not exposing this much skin around her.” Philip had a hilarious fear of Rose, probably because she actively tries to scare him, now that neither of them were in any more mortal danger. Lukas will tell Philip that’s just Rose messing around, and she’s actually harmless. One day.

Lukas hums, looking down at the costume in his hand. The guy in the picture looks very confident in his tiny gold shorts. Very muscular and very oiled.

“Wait,” says Philip. “Are you serious?”

Lukas shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says honestly.

“I thought we were doing Bill and Ted.”

They had just watched the movie last week. It had been a favorite of Philip and his mom’s, but it had been Lukas’s first time watching it. No one would get their costumes at the party, but at least it means seeing Philip in a crop top.

“What’s wrong with sexy Halloween costumes?” Lukas asks him.

“Nothing, except when society creates a culture that pressures women, and I guess men, and whoever else, that they have to wear them to be conventionally attractive. But if someone wants to look sexy for themselves, because they enjoy it, I guess there’s nothing wrong with that.” It’s a little hard for Lukas to take Philip seriously with the astronaut helmet still on.

“We could go as sexy Bill and Ted,” Lukas says, waving the booty shorts in his hand, just to watch Philip’s face.

It doesn’t disappoint. He gapes like a fish, outraged, before closing his mouth and his eyes. He looks passive for a moment before scrunching his face up, like he’s trying to avoid something unavoidable.

“You promised not to hold it against me,” Philip says, strained, eyes still closed, “when I told you about my crush on Keanu Reeves.”

Lukas laughs, watching Philip struggle out of the helmet. His hair is a mess when he finally shoves it off, sticking out at every angle in a way that makes Lukas want to _pull_.

Philip holds the helmet under his arm like they do in the movies, cocking his hip. “Do you _want_ to wear a sexy costume?”

Lukas had only wanted to _see_ them, to see if they were actually real. He looks down at the one in his hand, at the model’s confident, swashbuckling grin and red sash below his shining six-pack abs. He hasn’t been so undressed in public since he was last hospitalized, and that had probably been the first time since infancy. Maybe one day, he’ll be so carefree to wear one of these outside. Right now, the knowledge that these are here, in reality, that he can pick up at any time, is enough.

But still. “Maybe we can meet in the middle of sexy and Keanu Reeves, and I can wear a long coat and dress as Neo.”

Philip drops the helmet, which manages to knock into several accessories on the opposite wall. He doesn’t even notice the mess cascading around him at first, still apparently picturing the image. When he blinks back to Earth, it’s with a flushed scowl.

“See if I ever share _my_ sexual awakening with _you_ every again,” he grumbles, kneeling down to clean everything up.

Lukas helps. He feels it’s only fair to tease Philip, being the one to cause his own sexual awakening in the first place.

 

* * *

 

Lukas is crammed into the back aisle of a bodega, trying to glimpse what granola bars they have on the bottom shelf, when he sees the girl.

He and Philip are taking advantage of a free Saturday with a trip into the city. There was a Diane Arbus exhibition at the Met Brauer Philip wanted to see, and even Lukas, who knows nothing about photography other than that Philip looks hot doing it, thought it had been pretty cool.

Afterwards, they head downtown to Washington Square. They both have started their applications to NYU, and Lukas can’t wait for this time next year, when just hanging out in the city will be their _life_ . All the _time._ He feels he might shake out of his skin with anticipation. He’s never wanted time to pass so quickly.

He’d left Philip alone in the park, trying to sneak pictures of the old men playing checkers. Philip said it was a cliche but obligatory New York City picture to take, and he had no real choice but to take it if he wanted to be a real photographer. Lukas had wandered away to get them some snacks at a corner store.

The girl’s over by the cold drinks. Her hair is half shaved and hot pink, and she’s twirling the ends absently with a paint-chipped fingernail as she looks at the cans of soda. Despite the cool autumn day, she’s wearing a short skirt and a tank top, but seems to be wearing a fishnet body suit underneath both. Her legs are pale and hairy, sticking out of a pair of glittery, scuffed Doc Martens. She has on a worn, extra-large Army surplus jacket, covered in studs and buttons. He can’t read them all, but most of their messages seem angry. She reaches into the case for a Sprite and then Lukas sees on the other side of her jacket two more buttons. One with that symbol for woman. The other a rainbow flag.

Lukas barely contains his gasp. _A lesbian._

Or. He thinks so, anyway. He can’t be sure, but he thinks he’s never seen a lesbian before, except on TV. She doesn’t look like Ellen Degeneres, but they all can’t, right? Just like he doesn’t look like Neil Patrick Harris.

 _Does_ he look like Neil Patrick Harris?

The girl catches him staring and frowns at him before turning away. Lukas can’t tell if that was a “always frowning at strangers in New York City” look or a “fuck you, you disgusting bigot” look.

He’s distressed by the idea. He hadn’t meant to be mean. He hadn’t meant to stare. He lurks behind the chips like a creep, watching her pay for the soda. How can he signal to her that he, too, has recently rejected heterosexuality? That he’s standing right behind her in that defining acronym?

It’s suddenly very important to him that this stranger knows he’s gay. At first it was his most heavily-guarded secret (before witnessing murder, even,) and then something he actively worked not to care about. But this girl needed to _know_ he isn’t thinking hateful things about her. She needs to know he’s the _same_.

In his research, he’d read how gay people in the past used hand signals and key phrases to inform other people of their preferences, to find like-minded individuals, to form safe spaces. There was a lot of talk about “queer-coded” outfits and hairstyles he found confusing. How did everyone know what meant what? Did they send out a notice? Wouldn’t that defeat the purpose? But still, fuck, why can’t they teach these codes in school? Is he gonna have to start carrying around a tiny rainbow flag of his own to wave in front of people, like, “Look at me, this is who I am, I worry about it all the time, but you don’t have to?”

He follows her outside, like a _creep_ , with only a vague idea of saying _something_ to her, but then Philip is there.  

“Hey. Did they not have your KIND bars?” he asks, adjusting his camera strap over his scarf. “You gotta branch out, they all taste the same. Bad.”

Lukas doesn’t say anything. He’s still looking at the girl.

Or the… not? In the daylight, he’s not so sure. She has more hair on her face than Lukas does. She walks over to someone waiting at the corner and gives them the soda and a kiss on the cheek. The person looks exactly like a man, until they turn and Lukas can see high cheekbones, perfect eyebrows, lipstick and dangling earrings. Nothing is definite anymore. They hug the person he’d stalked out of the bodega like a _creep_ , and it’s a loving collision of gender, meeting easily in the middle like a familiar, welcome kiss. Which they do, too.

A lump forms in Lukas’s throat, and he doesn’t know why.

“You okay?” Philip asks.

Someone jostles them trying to leave the bodega, and so they start walking back to the park. “New York City,” Lukas says, still watching the couple, “is so confusing sometimes.”

Philip doesn’t say anything, and then he says, “But not in a bad way, right?”

Lukas watches the couple head off in another direction, arms around each other, sharing their soda, chatting happily in the cold autumn air. He takes Philip’s hand, and it doesn’t make his stomach jump with nerves like it used to. He doesn’t debate between clutching it desperately, like a dare, or keeping his grip loose so he can drop it quickly if necessary. He just holds on, and it feels normal, comfortable, familiar.

“Nah,” he says. “In a good way.”

 

* * *

 

Lukas is in pain. He’s burning -- his muscles, his bones, his veins, all shriek at him to stop, to rest, for the love of God, _rest_. He can’t rest. He blinks the sweat out of his eyes, trying to stay focused, but all he can think about it how much everything hurts.

A little chirp by his desk, and he looks over at Philip’s Facetime request coming through on his phone. Philip in his photo ID has one of his eyes half-closed, his upper lip curled mid-sentence, his skin shiny. It’s an outtake from an attempted selfie gone wrong, and Philip would kill him if he ever saw it. But he’s unlikely to call if he’s in the room, and it never fails to make him laugh.

Except right now, Lukas has no energy to laugh. He collapses on the bed, letting go and taking a second to breathe, to _rest,_ before getting up. He slides into his chair and, with some difficulty, raises his phone to answer the call.

“Heyyy...llo.” Philip’s face looks adorably confused, even pixelated. “Did you get started without me?”

“What?”

“You.” Philip gestures vaguely. “This.”

Lukas looks down at his bare chest and gets what it looks like. Okay, he’s worked up a sweat, and yes, his pale skin gets flushed easily when he strains himself and sure, he is a red-blooded American male and, fine. He guesses Philip didn’t have to jump far to reach that conclusion.

“No,” assures Lukas. “I was just working out.”

“You were -- _what?_ ” Philip can’t hold in the snort.

“Hey!”

“Sorry.”

“I work out!”

“I --” Another snort. “Okay. I believe you.”

“I do!”

“Sure.”

“I…. just started.”

“When?” Philip asks. “Like five minutes ago?”

“No!” It’s been more like twenty-five minutes but, twenty-five minutes _straight_. That’s a lot.

“Are you doing sit-ups?” Philip sounds genuinely curious now, leaning back on his bed, looking very relaxed and not at all in pain. “Can I see you do one?”

Lukas flushes even pinker. “I was lifting weights.”

“You own _weights?_ Show me.”

Lukas tilts the phone to show Philip the rusted pile of his father’s old dumbbells he’d dragged down from the attic. They made Lukas’s hands orange and aching as he’d lugged them to his room. To be honest, he’s including the time it took to carry them down as part of the twenty-five minutes. He’s already got blisters. His arms are _killing_ him.

“Jesus!” Philip sits up, as though trying to look closer, when he can really just bring his phone closer to him. “They’re huge! Those are not beginner weights, Lukas.”

“It’s fine.” It’s not. Lukas thinks if he tried to pick one up now, it would stay on the floor, and his arms would just tear from his body instead like a cartoon.

“Why are you doing this again?”

Lukas shrugged. Even that is a little painful. “I just wanted to get some muscle.”

“Yeah, but why?”

Lukas finds he doesn’t want to explain it, finds he doesn’t know how. He’s always had an idea about how gay men _looked_ , even before he knew about himself. How one type of gay man looked more _manly_ than the other. How one type someone can just look at and _know_ they’re gay, while the other can blend in easier, only revealing who he really is if he truly wanted to. One that might be able to hide, and one that probably couldn’t as well. Lukas isn’t really sure which one sounds better, to be honest.

“Am I a twink?” he asks instead.

Philip opens his mouth, and then closes it again. He leans back on his bed. He looks to be thinking hard about his answer, and says carefully, “You’re not on Grindr still, are you?”

“What? No!”

Philip sighs, rubbing his nose. “I love you, Lukas. And I may have known about myself longer than you have, but I can’t be your gay guru. I’m still figuring this shit out for myself, too.”

“I know.” Lukas fidgets with a new blister, wishing he could hide his face from his phone. “I was just asking. It doesn’t matter.” He doesn’t want to meet Philip’s eyes, so he watches the small rise of his chest as Philip sighs again.

“If you’re a _twink_ ,” Philip says the word like it’s tart in his mouth, “then there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong, either, if you want to bulk up, gain weight, grow a beard, or dress in drag. And there’s nothing wrong with doing none of those things, too. All that matters if you’re acting natural to your _own_ self, dude. That you’re comfortable with yourself. Are you comfortable now?”

Lukas thinks about it. “My arms hurt.”

Philip grins crookedly. “Well. If you do want to get muscley, join a gym instead. First get a tetanus shot, though.”

Lukas feels a little embarrassed, but also excited at the same time, a rush of exhilaration at his own foolishness. He realizes it’s the knowledge that he can do any number of mortifying, awkward things, and it wouldn’t matter. Philip would still be there.

Philip puts the phone down on the bed, and all Lukas sees is his ceiling for a second. When he comes back, he’s also not wearing a shirt.

“Now,” he says, settling back on his bed once more. “Can we resume with the original purpose of this phone call?”

Lukas winces. His dad didn’t want him going out tonight so he could help him work early tomorrow morning (which is also going to suck a lot now). So instead of hanging out, he and Philip had a virtual date planned, like long-distance lovers, even though they’re less than ten miles away.

“God, Philip, I’m sorry.” Lukas holds up his swollen palm. “My arms feel like they’re going to fall off and my hands are killing me. I can barely hold this phone up, let alone anything else. I’m sorry.”

“Huh.” Philip considers this. And then he pointedly continues to unbutton his jeans. He angles his phone up higher so Lukas can get a wider picture. “Then you _are_ about to get very uncomfortable, aren’t you?”

Already Lukas can feel himself hardening in his boxers. He lays one sore hand on his crotch, feeling a heat coming from every part of his body. “Come on, man,” he whines, watching as Philip’s fingers drift idly over his flat belly. “That’s not fair.” 

Philip makes a sound of agreement, touching one of his nipples. “You’re a big, strong man, Lukas,” he says, finally sliding his hand down his pants. Lukas nearly crushes his phone at Philip’s moan. “You can handle it.”

 

* * *

 

It’s a quiet Sunday, and Lukas has lost track of time. His dad is out of town this week for work, and Philip is out running errands all morning with Gabe and Helen. He usually uses his rare time alone to ride his motorcycle, but it’s raining pretty hard today and he doesn’t want to die. His only options, then, are homework or listening to music.

He’s been lying on his bed for two hours now, listening intently, eyes closed, feeling more and more frustrated.

With an annoyed sigh, he opens his eyes, and there’s Philip in the doorway, looking damp and amused as thunder shakes the room.

“Jesus Christ, Philip!” Lukas nearly falls off the bed. He shoots up, hand over his heart. “You scared the crap out of me!”

Philip laughs, and says something Lukas can’t hear. He still has his headphones on.

He pushes them down around his neck. “What?”

“I said,” Philip says, still laughing, “‘Why are you yelling?’ I’ve been standing here for ten minutes trying to get your attention without scaring you.”

“Well, good job!” Lukas’s heart finally returns to its usual spot. He sits further up on the bed, leaving room for Philip to join him. Then he says, “Hi.”

“Hi,” says Philip. They smile stupidly at each other for a minute. The tinny sound of his music through his headphones and the rain are all that’s heard.

“You look like you were concentrating really hard on what you were listening to,” says Philip, picking up his phone. “What is --” In tugging it near him, the headphones fall out of the jack.

An old, electronic beat, and a woman’s high voice fills the room. “ _We’re in an awful mess, and I don’t mean maybe, please -- Papa, don’t preach! I’m in trouble deep! Papa, don’t preach! I’ve been losing sleep!”_

Philip pauses the music. They stare down at the phone like it’s a bomb about to go off.

“Lukas.”

“.... Yes?”

“Why are you listening to Madonna.” Philip doesn’t say it like a question, which is good news because Lukas doesn’t have an answer.

“I’m just --” Lukas sighs, running his hand through his hair, and suddenly his afternoon frustrations come tumbling out. “I don’t know. I don’t know! I’m trying to figure out what my _thing_ is now. I used to not have to think about it and now it’s _all_ I think about. How I’m, like, supposed to be, or act, or wear. I don’t _know_ . I don’t know what I’m supposed to _like_ anymore.”

Philip reaches out and takes his hand. “Lukas,” he says gently. “You like _boys_.”

Lukas snorts, despite himself. “Shut up,” he says. “I like you.”

“Do you like Madonna?” Philip asks.

Lukas looks away. He shrugs. He says, “I’m gay.”

“ _What?_ No!”

Lukas laughs now, pushing at Philip’s shoulder. “ _Stop_.” He doesn’t let go of Philip though, stays clinging to his shirt. “I’m a gay man. Gay men are supposed to like Madonna.”

“Says who?”

“The internet.” Lukas shrugs again. “ _Will & Grace._”

“Fuck the internet, man.” Philip cups his cheek. “I’m only going to say this….well, as many times as you need to hear it, I guess. There’s no one way to do this. There’s no mold we need to force ourselves into. There’s no singular representation of homosexuality we have to make ourselves fit. We are who we are, and we’ll discover what we like and what we don’t, _together_. Okay?”

Lukas exhales hard, but nods. “Where’d you learn all that, if you’re not a gay guru?”

“From a book. Like I said, fuck the internet.”

“You have a _book?_ ”

Philip hums. “You can borrow it when I’m done. Gabe got it for me. I nearly died.” His hand slides further back now, into Lukas’s hair. “Now, the book doesn’t say, but I’m going with my gut here. I’m pretty sure all we need to know to be a Good Gay is to like this.” With that, he crawls into Lukas’s lap and kisses him.

Lukas doesn’t like this. He _loves_ it. He wraps his arms around Philip’s back, pulling him as close as possible. There’s no part of this that doesn’t feel natural and right and good. He rolls them over on the bed without letting go so they’re lying down. He swallows Philip’s gasp, but he’s still hungry, wants more of them. They’re still kissing, moving with each other, but one of them moves in precisely the wrong way, as they roll over his phone and another song starts.

“ _Life is a mystery, everyone must stand alone, I hear you call my name, and it feels like…. home….”_

The beat picks up, slow with ringing bells and then fast with sudden drums. They both freeze.

Lukas pulls away from Philip. They listen for a second and then Lukas says, somewhat shyly, “I kinda like this one.”

Philip snorts, face soft. “Yeah. This one isn’t bad.”

Looking down at Philip, hearing the joyous chorus vibrate across his bed, vibrate through them, Lukas thinks he gets it. The freedom of the beat, the devotion of the words, the beauty of the voice, the permanence of the song. He looks at Philip’s swollen lips, his red cheeks, his eyelashes still wet with rainwater, and Lukas gets it. Lukas gets Madonna.

Suddenly overcome with the revelation, he springs off the bed. He grabs his phone from the bed, plugs it into his speakers, and lets the song fill the room, transforming his childhood bedroom into their own nightclub. Then, he begins to dance.

Philip sits up on his elbow watching him incredulously. “Okay, I’m sorry. There’s been some kind of mistake. I know that was your boner just grinding into my leg a second ago, but there’s no way you’re gay. No gay man would dance like this.”

Lukas laughs, swinging his hips even further off the beat. He throws in a little shoulder action with it, lifting his fists over his head. “Come on then, my gay guru,” he says, grabbing Philip’s hand and hauling him up. “Show me your moves.” He keeps holding his hands while he rocks their arms side to side, three feet of space between them.

“ _When you call my name, it’s like a little prayer, I’m down on my knees, I wanna take you there!”_

“Ugh,” says Philip, shaking his hands free and grabbing Lukas by the waist, matching him to his pace, a simple sway that’s at least on the rhythm. “This is gonna end up being our wedding song one day, isn’t it?”

The rain outside falls even harder, and Lukas just pulls Philip in tighter. In the back of his mind, he can’t help but imagine his dad’s frozen, sour face the picture they must make. His son, under his roof, dancing close with another man, to _Madonna._  It makes him smile even harder. It makes him want to sing along, so he does.

“ _In the midnight hour, I can feel your power. Just like a prayer, you know I’ll take you there.”_

 

* * *

 

Later that afternoon, they’re on the couch downstairs, watching the Bills game he’d Tivo’d earlier. Philip starts out the game politely feigning interest for the first quarter, but, being more of a basketball fan, he quickly drops off, resting his head in Lukas’s lap. Lukas idly caresses Philip’s hair while he watches, Philip first messing around on his phone and then dozing, drooling a little onto Lukas’s thigh. And Philip doesn’t even get too upset when the Dolphins fumble at the 5-yard line, ensuring the Bills’s victory, causing Lukas to leap up into the air and shout in triumph, throwing Philip to the floor. It takes a lot of coaxing and kissing to receive Philip’s disgruntled forgiveness, but he does get it in the end, and the crowd on the TV goes _wild._

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> hi i'm new
> 
>  
> 
> [ for you to dance with in ya own rooms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79fzeNUqQbQ)


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